Beans comes from an era of rappers that represented the golden age of hip hop, his raw talent and dedication in hip hop’s birthplace New York, bringing him wide spread acclaim and respect as both a member of NYC’s Anti Pop Consortium and as a solo artist.

Despite releases on some of the most influential and respected electronic labels in the world (including Warp and Mo Wax), his new album Thorns was an independent release by Beans’ own label Adored & Exploited Records, which saw Beans himself manage almost the entire release on his own.

With a hectic tour schedule that brings him down to Australia in the middle of October to perform at Beck’s Rumpus Room for Melbourne Festival, ITM caught up with Beans to discuss the new album and gain some insight on the path he took to release it.
Your previous releases have been on Warp Records. Was there any reason you decided to leave Warp to produce this record?
I decided to put this record out myself to be more empowered and have full control over the process.

As someone who is considered an – œunderground’ artist today, how did you find the process of creating, marketing, touring and selling an album on your own?
Seeing as I’ve been on both sides of the fence, I honestly would prefer having a label behind me. This album was very personal for me, Thorns being the description for a period of my life and what I was going through, but for my next record I’ll definitely look at a label to help in the process of pushing the album along. I’m really proud of how much I’ve achieved doing this album by myself, considering it’s reached you way down there in Brisbane, Australia – I think that’s a great accomplishment but there was certain things I just wasn’t able to do with Thorns by myself that I believe I could have done with a label and the backbone they provide behind me.

Did you find it difficult juggling the business of running your own the label with writing this album at the same time? How much time did you have to dedicate to the business side of things?
It was hard – I had to spend a lot of time doing the business stuff. I had help at the time, an ex-girlfriend of mine, but it was just me and her doing everything ourselves, the mail-outs, all the marketing, everything and it did take a lot of time and hard work to get exposure for the album.

Considering the expense associated with distributing an album on vinyl or even CD did you ever consider only releasing this album digitally?
For Thorns the main way to get the music out there was digitally and we only really did CDs to sell at shows and for promotion. I didn’t get vinyl pressed at all purely for the cost associated with it – most heads prefer vinyl and I may get it done as an LP down the track but it just wasn’t practical at the time.

What’s your take on the prevalence of file sharing and piracy in the music industry since digital distribution took over and how do you deal with it as an artist?
The only way to deal with it is by touring a lot. If you give something to somebody and they pass it on to someone else you can’t really control that. The only thing I can control is how it affects my livelihood. The main thing I was always focused on when I was on Warp was always touring, you would be putting out records to tour anyway – I’m more concerned with touring anyway, so long as I’m able to make a record and tour it, that’s always been my main concern. What it comes down to with an artist is their ability to perform live and tour, I think it always has been but I think these days there is a much stronger emphasis on it.

What can people expect on your tour to Australia?
It’s going to be a balance between songs from my new album, some older material and some of my stuff from Anti Pop Consortium. I have a pretty standard hip hop set-up, just me and DJ Prolific on stage – two turntables and a mic.

Catch Beans performing with Ramallah Underground and Ro Sham Bo this Friday 23rd October at the Rumpus Room, Forum Theatre in Melbourne.